The Elastic margin: central banking theory and practice in colonial Burma

The purpose of this paper is to bring to light efforts to fashion a central bank in Burma during the years in which the country was a province of British India. Throughout this era, which lasted from 1886 to 1937, questions of money and finance were chiefly the preserve of the Raj in Calcutta. Behind the scenes, however, plans to establish a central bank for Burma itself were promoted by imperial officials well-schooled in the great monetary and banking controversies of the age. These plans borrowed ideas from many likely and unlikely places but they were also innovative in their own right, and were not without useful insights for central banks everywhere. Lastly, this advocacy for a central bank in Burma was also indicative of a political economy discourse in the country that was more vigorous, and theoretically sophisticated, than is commonly supposed.